Flight plans uploaded from the Commune into the pod’s controller, and it slid through the air to land upright on its landing gear, in a field a few hundred yards from a barn on the outskirts of the Commune village. Two people in a horse-driven buggy were coming their way along a dirt road.
Unstrapping himself, Sid motioned for the rest of them to do the same. “Seems we have a welcome party.”
Sid had never been inside the Commune. He wondered what would happen next. The door to the pod slid open just as the buggy arrived. Sid took a deep breath. “Hello, thanks for letting us in, my name—”
One of the men hopped down from the buggy. “I know what your name is,” he said, his face obscured by a large black hat. Sibeal stuck her head out from behind Sid.
“But,” said Vince, taking off his hat, “I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to your friends.”
22
So this is what it feels like to be dead.
Bob pulled back the blinds hanging on the window of his old room and peered out. After his external meta-cognition systems rebooted, he flitted his primary viewpoint into his family’s habitat, one of the few above-ground living quarters on Atopia that sprouted up out of the water just offshore, attached to one of the mass driver legs. The seas were calm, gently rolling, with nothing to hint at the titanic events that had just taken place beneath its surface.
I just died.
And yet.
Here I am.
He looked at his hands, turning them over. He’d inhabited countless virtual bodies before now, but this instance took on a special significance. Now he had no physical body to return to. Did he feel different? Yes. Like a ship that had thrown off its anchor, his mind felt at sea, drifting—but free. There was no meat-mind holding him back, no dead weight.
He laughed grimly at his own joke.
But how to tell if “me” remained “me”?
Mind uploading wasn’t proven, and “mind uploading” wasn’t even the proper term. They still couldn’t copy all of the intricacies of the live brain, but just the external and internal signaling. He was now a black box that mimicked the original in nearly every detail, with “nearly” being the operative word. People had died and kept their externally stored minds active, but the jury was still out whether these were still “people”—no legal courts would uphold the idea. So even if Bob was still Bob, he was technically no longer a person.
Bob walked upstairs and looked around the kitchen. It was empty. A part of him wished his parents were here, but more of him was glad they weren’t. In some corner of his mind he thought that if someone had to tell his mother that he was dead, it would be best that he told her himself. He laughed again, sad now. Dying seemed to have a strange effect on the mind.
Being dead would take some getting used to.
Almost against his will, he moved across the entranceway to the door to his brother’s old room. His brother had been dead for more than six years, after committing suicide. And ultimately so did I. Funny how that worked out. The door slid open, and everything was where it always was. Their mother hadn’t touched a thing in the room since Martin died. She probably wouldn’t touch anything in Bob’s room now. He wondered if this habitat was on its way to becoming a mausoleum.
Perhaps it already was.
Gliding away, he climbed the stairs, out onto the rooftop terrace.
Outside the sky was still blue, the sun still shining, and the beaches of Atopia stood where they always had, just beyond the booming surf. The world always felt unreal to Bob, but before he’d been able to lay his hand on a table, pinch himself when he needed, but not anymore. The dream of existence felt like it had swallowed him.
Through all of life, thought Bob, death was our closest companion. It was always there, just a misstep away, patiently waiting, and always, in the end, winning and bringing us back into its arms—but no more. That constant companion was gone now. Death had become him. Bob breathed deeply, realizing even as he did it that he’d already taken his last one. He didn’t need to breath anymore, but didn’t have the luxury of long reflection either. He had a job to do.
His gambit had worked.
Letting his physical body be killed had drawn Jimmy in close, the human part of Jimmy’s mind going frantic, separating itself from the other. Jimmy didn’t want to kill Bob, not the human part of him. Bob had been counting on it, and with Jimmy’s guard down he found a crack into Jimmy’s inner networks.
Bob had one more trip to complete: a journey into Jimmy’s mind.
His view of the shining towers of Atopia, above the green forests and surging ocean swells, gave way to a voluminous, bright corridor. Not really a corridor, but a long set of huge rooms, connected by archways. At the far end Bob could see Jimmy arguing with another projection of himself, their voices echoing through the hallways.
Bob walked toward them.
Sky-blue frescos of angels and cherubs adorned twenty-foot ceilings bordered in gold carvings. Dark-framed oil paintings of uniformed men on horseback hung across one side of the walls. The other side was floor-to-ceiling lead glass windows that looked onto manicured gardens surrounding a long reflecting pool. Sunlight streamed in between purple drapes tied back with gold sashes.
The place smelled stale. Elaborate furniture was scattered everywhere, much of it filled with sleeping creatures. Bob recognized them, the playmates of Jimmy’s childhood, the ones he once met in Jimmy’s hiding place under the sensory thunderfall. Jimmy sat behind a polished cherry desk set with an antique globe on it. Sitting on the desk was another version of Jimmy. The two of them were deep in discussion. They hadn’t noticed Bob yet.
So this is what the inside of Jimmy’s head looks like. That voice we all had in our heads, now Bob saw Jimmy’s inner voice, incarnate and sitting on the desk. Or perhaps behind it? One of the two. Whether this was some psychosis of Jimmy’s, or an invasive intelligence, was an open question, but either way he had to be stopped.
Bob couldn’t help feeling intrusive. He was in the innermost sanctum of Jimmy’s being, past all the protective barriers. Intruding. He felt like he wanted to apologize, but resisted. He just tried to kill me. He should have felt angry, vengeful, but he didn’t. Looking at Jimmy’s face, still unaware Bob was here, he only felt sorry for him.
Everyone had weaknesses. Bob knew Jimmy’s, had long known them ever since he’d watched Jimmy pick the legs off insects in the topside forests when they were kids. Jimmy had hidden it as they grew older, but now Bob felt like he’d failed Jimmy as well.
“He forced us, we had no choice,” said the Jimmy sitting on the desk. The seated Jimmy had his face in his hands.
One of the creatures stirred, noticing Bob, and Jimmy-on-the-desk turned around. His dark eyes flashed, but any evidence of surprise was replaced with a cruel smile. “See, no harm done. Here’s our friend.” He patted the other Jimmy on the shoulder.
Bob’s feelings of sympathy evaporated in the naked malice he felt filling the room. He might have cheated death, but this Jimmy might kill him again. “I’m no friend of yours,” he said to Jimmy-on-the-desk.
“How cliché,” mocked Jimmy-on-the-desk. “Sacrificing yourself for the sins of man.”
The seated Jimmy looked up. His face registered genuine surprise. “Bob?”
All of the creatures had awoken. Some of them approached, but Jimmy-on-the-desk held up a hand, easing them back from obstructing Bob.
“Not everybody hates you, Jimmy,” Bob said, easing closer. He forwarded some private memories he had, of their talks, the times under the thunderfall—all the memories he shared with Jimmy, ones only Bob would have.